I called Time Warner New York City to switch my cable over from analog to digital in preparation for the new S3 being shipped from tivo.com (old old lifetime S1 that could break any day now is going to be "traded in" whoo hoo!). The customer rep talked to me and told me the following information:

1) You can pick up CableCards at any TimeWarner store. Just stop by, and ask for them, and they can add them to your account. In fact, he said that he thought that was the only way to get them (that even if they sent a person to the house, they can only install digital cable, you'd have to then go to the store to pick up the cable cards). So it looks like self install and at $1.75 each, I can live with that.

2) To upgrade from analog to digital cable, I can self install, and bring my old boxes in, and they will set me up in the store.

Sweetness.

FYI, I logged into BB's website and to my surprise, it claimed there were S3 Tivos in stock at my neighborhood store. I hopped on my bike and searched the store top to bottom. A helpful sales rep actually even searched the system for a SKU, and went onto the website, and finally after much searching found that in fact the store had no S3 Tivos. In fact, none of the stores in Manhattan have them. They are due to arrive in the store on September 17 according to their in-store databases... By then I hope to have my new Tivo all set up!

I will repost when I have Tivo and digital cable setup, and see if the CableCard installation goes as easily as I hope.

1) You can pick up CableCards at any TimeWarner store. Just stop by, and ask for them, and they can add them to your account. In fact, he said that he thought that was the only way to get them (that even if they sent a person to the house, they can only install digital cable, you'd have to then go to the store to pick up the cable cards). So it looks like self install and at $1.75 each, I can live with that.

This is contrary to what I've been told by TWCNYC... I'm told that you MUST have a tech come on-site. Tempted to go stand on line at 23rd St, but can't afford to lose 90 min of my life to be told no.

I ordered my TiVo yesterday afternoon as soon as the lifetime transfer page went live. With overnight delivery I expect it to arrive on Friday since they said 24-48 hours before it shipped..

Don't believe what you were told about being able to just stop by the TimeWarner store and just pick up CableCards. I was told the same thing. Twice, in fact. I called once yesterday morning and once last night and was told I could just pick them up in person and install them myself.

So I went to Time Warner on E. 23rd St (right off park ave south) early this afternoon to swap my plain old cable box for the CableCards (which I can also use in my TV so I am not completely cable-less until the new TiVo arrives). The wait was fortunately only a few minutes, but I then spent more than an hour talking to everyone there starting with the rep who called my number (you have to take tickets there), the sales guy at the front desk and 3 managers who all told me they'd been there for years and they all said I was given WRONG information and that you MUST have an installer scheduled to come out and that they dio NOT have CableCards there at all so they obviously couldn't give them to me.

FWIW, they were all actually very nice about it and understood why I was so frustrated (a common theme with TWC) and they all apologized that bad info was being given out by phone.

I was very specific with them that it was a TiVo S3 that I was having these CableCards installed into and not one of them told me that would be a problem - which is a good thing. Although I had a copy of the CableCard install sheet that I downloaded from tivo.com the other day in case I needed to show them the light. Fortunately I didn't have to do that.

So I have an appointment scheduled for Friday afternoon with the hopes that my TiVo S3 will arrive before they do. But if it doesn't, I figure I have waited and waited so many times for them to show up when they were scheduled to and had them never show that it's only fair that I get to do the same to them for a change! of course I'll probably have to wait another week to get a new appointment scheduled if I need to, but I suppose I'll live

Don't believe what you were told about being able to just stop by the TimeWarner store and just pick up CableCards. I was told the same thing. Twice, in fact. I called once yesterday morning and once last night and was told I could just pick them up in person and install them myself.

Thanks for posting that! I was sitting here reading the first post, and started toying with the idea of waking up at the crack of dawn so I could be at the 23rd St office at 8am when the lines are mercifully short. Saved me a lot of time!

TWCNYC is coming next week Tuesday afternoon for my install (with my TiVo coming this Friday if the stars align right). That gives me the weekend to rewire the home theater and get everything "ready".

I think whoever said the 17th was looking at the computer but probably didn't check if they were actually in stock. They seem to be trickling in to a few stores, so it might be worth calling around and seeing if you can actually get an employee helpful enough to check regional stock.

just got off the phone to schedule an appt, and i was told the first available installation date was not available until nov 21st!?!?!?!??!

apparently there are no cable card technicians available until that date, although i can call and try and see if there are any cancellations. does that mean there are that many ppl in nyc who have purchased a series 3?!?!

I have TWC in NYC and 2 series 2 Tivos that are networked. Obviously, they don't record in HD although I have HD boxes on both tvs so I can watch in HD. Is the only advantage to the cable card that I can get the newest Tivo and record in HD? I am a bit concerned about the storage capacity of the new HD Tivo. I had added a second hard drive to my older series 2 so it has 200 hours storage. Does anybody think it's worth it to sacrifice storage in order to get the new HD version (and I would never pony up $800 or whatever they want for the super HD model). I see I'd also lose Tivo to Go and multiroom viewing although frankly it takes so long to send a show between the two boxes that it seems a whole lot cooler than it is. I also wouldn't do it unless they let me swap my lifetime service.

TWNYC is telling me that switching to cable cards (ie, tivo2 -> tivo3) from a normal box is going to "break" my package deal. The end result is $10 more a month - which sucks.

Anyone run into issues like this? if i bitch and say i'm going to switch to something else might they let me keep my package? stuff like that works (sometimes) with directv.. but i'm not sure TW cares

I'm surprised the difference is only $10/month, as I was faced with a much larger increase. When I argued with TWCNYC over this issue, they calculated that it would be cheaper to keep the cable box, thereby qualifying for the package deal, and add two CableCARDs to the account. I think TWCNYC has instituted additional outlet fees in the past year, so adding the cards to your current package may be more than $1.75/month X 2. Investigate this option carefully.

You can argue them down on the installation fees pretty easily, not to zero, but something about $17 if memory serves me right.

I canceled digital cable. Even their retention department didn't care.

Just purchased a HDTivo, and the first installation date for TWC NYC CableCards is November 8! Anyone else with that experience? They also said that installation would be $30.30 for the first card, and $19 for the second card. I wish they had some competition in Manhattan...

I just came back from 23rd street where I made my appointment! The wait wasn't long, but I could have done it over the phone if the customer support rep didn't recommend I go to the store to save the installation fee of $30. My appointment is in 10 days. I should be getting my TiVo HD next week...

Will I need 2 cable cards to record/watch two channels with TWC in NYC? I want to make sure the tech comes with everything I need, and i get the set up right.

Also is there anything I'll be missing out after i return my TWC DVR? (don't care about payper view or the cruddy TWC guide...)

What's up with the guide? After going through the setup the guide only shows channels 1-99. Will setup give me more options (HD channels 702+) once I have a card in there?

Is there anything I can do in the mean time? Without the card I can only get some channels if I plug in my cable straight to the tivo - the cable out on my TWC dvr gives me nothing (or I'm using a bum cable) - Even then I have to scan for channels and they don't match up with the guide (example scanning finds channels 1-2* to 1-81*)

Yes I think if you check your "Channels I Receive" you will find that the HD channels are listed but not checked because you aren't actually receiving them (correctly mapped) until you get your CableCard.

You may be able to receive some local HD channels without the CableCard, but not correctly mapped to the channel numbers. When I was a Comcast subscriber my TV was able to find the unmapped channels with auto-tune before it had a CableCard. I have not tried this with an HD TiVo and NYC TWC. Perhaps someone else will chime in?

You may be able to receive some local HD channels without the CableCard, but not correctly mapped to the channel numbers. When I was a Comcast subscriber my TV was able to find the unmapped channels with auto-tune before it had a CableCard. I have not tried this with an HD TiVo and NYC TWC. Perhaps someone else will chime in?

I am also interested in how usefull a TIVO HD would be and how it would perform using the default no cost NYC TWC without a cable card.

I get plenty of HD channels without a cable box or a cable card straight through the tunner of my TV, but I am guessing most of these TIVO won't be able to do any thing with because they are not mapped right due to the lack of a cable card.

With out a cable card does the HD locals like CBS, NBC, and ABC map correctly at least?
I might be tempted to get a TIVO HD if I can set season passes for the big 3 networks.

I am also interested in how usefull a TIVO HD would be and how it would perform using the default no cost NYC TWC without a cable card.

I get plenty of HD channels without a cable box or a cable card straight through the tunner of my TV, but I am guessing most of these TIVO won't be able to do any thing with because they are not mapped right due to the lack of a cable card.

With out a cable card does the HD locals like CBS, NBC, and ABC map correctly at least?
I might be tempted to get a TIVO HD if I can set season passes for the big 3 networks.

This simply won't work for you. I've tried it. The channels are not mapped and therefore Tivo doesn't know what's on them or when. The only solution I've found for a HD Tivo with no cablecard is using an antenna to get your local network affliates. This combined with analog cable works, but you will still be unable to use guide data for the HD channels that are on the cable system even if you receive them in the clear. I even went so far as to order a cablecard off Ebay in the hopes that even if it was not authorized by my cable company the Tivo still might receive channel mapping from it, but that did not work either. I got NO channels with an unauthorized cablecard.